This appendix shows how the C$0.2-0.4 billion annual immigration allowance is built. It also explains why the treatment of existing residents is more generous, and the expected removal volume much smaller than in the 2025 Value of Freedom analysis.
D.1 Family and existing-resident transition
Every permanent resident is re-examined, and every temporary permit holder is checked at renewal or at their next application. What follows sets out the standard applied to each group. None of it is an exemption from review.
- A foreign spouse or genuine common-law partner of an Alberta citizen does not need to win an economic points competition. Existing permanent status is confirmed, or a family application is processed, subject to identity, security and serious-criminality checks. Dependent children are included.
- Established permanent residents with stable employment or self-employment receive a streamlined confirmation route.
- Established work-permit holders keep their permit to expiry and receive credit for Alberta work when applying for permanent residence.
- Other temporary permits remain valid to expiry. Renewal is decided under Alberta's rules; non-renewal normally means departure at expiry rather than an enforced removal.
- Protected persons and refugees are handled under a separate legal and protection process.
- Long residence, genuine family dependency and exceptional hardship may be considered in a limited humanitarian reconsideration process. This structure follows the practical distinction already used in mature immigration systems: family reunification tests the genuineness and admissibility of the relationship, while economic immigration tests employability and adaptability [IRCC-FAM][IRCC-INAD].
D.2 How many permanent residents would actually fail reassessment?
The working permanent-resident stock is about 190,000. Spread over three years, approximately 63,000 cases are reviewed each year. Most economic immigrants have already passed a skills assessment and gained Canadian work experience. Spouses of Alberta citizens are grandfathered.
Refugees and protected persons follow their own legal route. For the remaining cases, the planning model uses a total refusal range of 4,950 to 9,530 over three years, or 1,650 to 3,180 a year. The United Kingdom's European Union Settlement Scheme is a useful process comparator because it had to regularize the status of millions of people already living in the country. Its experience shows two things that matter here: large resident-status exercises take years, and a refusal is not automatically an enforced removal [UK-EUSS].
D.3 Removal capacity: benchmark against what governments actually do
Canada completed 23,047 enforced removals in 2025, the highest of the previous six years, and 1,181 involved serious inadmissibility such as national security or criminality. The Canada Border Services Agency had additional funding to support a target of 20,000 removals a year [CBSA-26]. A newly independent Alberta would have a much smaller population and less mature diplomatic access to travel documents. It would be implausible to assume tens of thousands of forced removals.
| Removal workload | Annual planning value | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent-resident refusals | 1,650-3,180 | Reassessment range. Not all become removals. |
| Serious-criminality removals | 130-200 | Population-scaled court and Canada Border Services Agency comparator. |
| Routine overstay or misrepresentation removals | 200-400 | Practical allowance based on regional scale. |
| Enforced removals actually executed | 800-2,000 | Capacity-constrained. Voluntary departures and permit expiries are separate. |
The gap between refusals and enforced removals is deliberate. Some people depart voluntarily, some regularize through another route, some win an appeal, and some cases remain unresolved. Treating every refusal as a deportation would greatly overstate both the operational capacity and the cost.
D.4 Direct removal cost and the full programme cost
Canada's published cost-recovery amounts are C$3,840 for an unescorted removal and C$12,880 for an escorted removal by air. These amounts are based on actual Canada Border Services Agency removal expenditures adjusted for inflation [SOR-284]. At a ten per cent escort rate, the blended direct cost is about C$4,700 per removal.
| Component | Annual | One-time |
|---|---|---|
| Reassessment administration and systems | C$60-90M | C$80-120M |
| Immigration administration, screening and settlement services | C$100-140M | C$60-90M |
| Direct removals, 800-2,000 at about C$4,700 | C$4-10M | - |
| Detention and escorts | C$8-15M | C$40-60M |
| Adjudication, appeals and legal aid | C$40-70M | C$20-30M |
| Error and remediation reserve | C$25-50M | - |
| Total workload cross-check | C$237-375M | C$200-300M |
The error reserve is intentional. Immigration decisions can create large legal and compensation costs when settled people are wrongly denied status.
The United Kingdom's Windrush experience is the cautionary comparator [UK-WIND]. The one-time C$200-300 million cross-check substantially overlaps the C$196.7 million immigration setup already included in the C$4.96 billion transition budget. It is therefore not added again.
The fiscal ledger carries the annual workload as C$0.2-0.4 billion and discloses about C$0.1 billion as the possible upper-end one-time difference.
